We collect broker spreads, letting you compare the averages for different symbols over time and across different market sessions. (We don't show current live spreads. That information is more or less meaningless. What matters is a broker's average and their range, not what the value happens to be right now.)

You can use the links above to do the following:

• Compare the average spreads on a symbol from different brokers
• Compare the range of spreads from minimum to maximum
• Inspect the variation across different market sessions - for example, some brokers deliberately widen their spreads during the Tokyo session to hinder scalping
• View a "rate card" of a single broker's spreads on several symbols
• Chart the average spread from a broker, and the range of their spread
• Draw a comparative chart of the average spreads from two or more brokers
• Open multiple browser tabs (using Ctrl+click) to switch easily between different information
• Bookmark individual pages, or send the URLs to friends and associates
• ...Plus all the above compatible with iPads and iPhones

We show the following information:

• The average spread, across the whole of the collection period and also for individual market sessions
• A smoothed minimum and maximum spread (the average of the peak and trough in each minute) - the absolute minimum and maximum are not very informative because they can last for only a few seconds out of a whole week, during news. In particular, spreads during NFP can spike to several times normal levels.
• Charts showing the spread history divided up into 15-minute segments (because a chart with more frequent data points would simply be too wide to be manageable). The historic charts do show the full range of spread from absolute minimum to maximum, not the smoothed averages.

The basis of our data collection and presentation is as follows:

• Spreads are collected on every tick reported by the broker to MT4 (provided, of course, that the broker's server does not go down)
• Trading sessions are a little debatable, and are defined by us as follows: Tokyo 00:00 to 08:59 GMT, London 07:00 to 16:59 GMT, New York 13:00 to 21:59 GMT
• All times shown (on charts) are GMT/UTC, not broker time or our local time
• We publish spread data on a weekly basis, thus ignoring short-term variation and volatility but allowing improvements by brokers to filter through to the site rapidly

We collect data from a variety of live and demo broker accounts (without the broker's involvement):

• Some demo accounts may have spreads representative of a premium type of account which requires a large deposit or minimum trade size, or which may charge commission on top of the spread
• Some brokers may have multiple classes of live account with different spreads - e.g. an account type with fixed spreads, and an account type with variable spreads